Priest builds
4.0.1. builds With Patch 4.0.1 the number of options in the skill trees has been reduced. Now it is mandatory to put 31 points into one skill tree; only then point can be spent in another tree. However, there is still room for some customization. Example: Level 80 Holy Raiding build 3/33/0 With this build, there are a few options: * If you don't intent to use Heal at all, there is no reason to invest in Surge of Light. * On the other hand, if you don't intent to use Flash Heal, there is no reason to invest point in Serendipity. However, with two point in Serendipity, you can use a rotation of two flash heal followed by one Greater Heal. * At level 80, Body and Soul is only useful if you are using your Power Word: Shield as a Holy Priest. If your reaction time is fast enough, you can use it to increase your own movement speed or the movement speed of another raid member. There are several encounters where this can be very helpful; An example would be Rotface in Icecrown Citadel (where players have to run towards the off-tank if the receive the debuff 'Mutated Infection'). * Lightwell is not taken in this build, because other raid members rarely want to use it. If this is different in you raids, you might want to take it. * Blessed Resilience is not taken in this build, because the 4.0.1 version appears to be mostly useful for PvP. This depends, however, on what kind of effects are considered 'attack' as in the skill description. This would require some testing. Disclaimer As with all examples of talent builds or point distributions, the optimum build depends largely on your playstyle (PvP, soloing, raiding, etc., or a specific combination of spells you like to use) as well as gear, party members, and other factors. The builds listed below are not for everyone, nor are they always the best. They are at worst, opinions, and are usually subjective. Leveling builds If you intend to level your priest mainly through solo questing, a shadow build produces high damage along with good survivability through Shadowform and Vampiric Embrace. If you intend to level your priest through instances and grouping, a holy or discipline healing build is the way to go (you should then read Leveling a Holy Priest). It should be noted that some players have found healing as Shadow possible at lower levels, but the healing capabilities are compromised with no talents to improve healing and limited mana regeneration. Holy and Discipline specs also have a handful of talents that work with Smite to make them viable soloing builds. Shadow Leveling Spec ::A recommendation for how the talents might be placed as you level up: ::* Level 29 (0/0/11) ::* Level 45 (0/0/19) ::* Level 59 (0/0/26) ::* Level 75 (3/0/31) as of 4.0.1 Improved Psychic Scream, Silence and Paralysis are taken for extra survivability and utility, and because there are few other options. They are especially useful to players who level with a mixture of PvP and PvE. Shadow Word: Death and Dispersion are used periodically to give mana. PvE (Obsolete) A breakdown of each tree: *Discipline: Discipline priests are healers and damage mitigators. They are not built to be adept as the main raid healer due to lack of AoE heal spells, but fantastic tank healers. A good Disc healer will never top the healing charts - because if they time their moves and mitigate damage correctly, they'll never need to. *Holy: Holy priests have strong AoE healing spells and high heal output, and make ideal raid healers as well as having talents for tank healing. Holy priests are the all-rounders of healing classes and can easily adapt to different situations. *Shadow: Shadow Priests are the damage dealers of the priest class, and can take on a shadow form to improve their shadow damage even further at the sacrifice of holy (healing) spells. They have powerful DoTs and an array of buffs they can provide for a group or raid. Discipline builds ::Tips on playing Discipline ::Stat priorities while below 30% Holy crit (without raid buffs) ::*Spell Power > Critical Strike > Intellect > Spirit ::At 30-35% holy crit and 1500+ Intellect (Tier 9) stat priorities become (without raid buffs) ::*Spell Power > Spell Haste > Critical Strike > Intellect > Spirit ::Discipline does benefit from Spirit because of the Meditation talent. It is important to recognize that Discipline priests should never be outside of the 5 second rule and that nearly all of a discipline priest mana regeneration comes from Rapture with small benefit from Meditation. For this reason spirit is less valuable to discipline priests and Intellect should always be taken first. Intellect increases mana regeneration, critical strike chance, and mana pool size. ::Spell Priority and Technique: ::*Using spells in a certain order does benefit the Discipline healer. ::*Grace will be applied whenever you use Penance or 3 consecutive Flash Heals on a target for a 9% effective healing increase to that target. ::*Prayer of Mending, Penance, Flash Heal can critically strike, activating Divine Aegis on the healed target. ::*After casting Power Word: Shield you will gain the benefits of Borrowed Time, Renewed Hope, and Rapture. A Power Word: Shield + Borrowed Time + Greater Heal OR Prayer of Healing will allow you to provide large burst healing to a tank or to a raid group. ::*In some encounters Power Word: Shield will be too strong. As a result Rapture will not be available throughout a fight. To get around this you can down rank Power Word: Shield from maximum spell rank to one or two ranks lower. Weaker shields will allow a Rapture proc on your tank or raid group. This technique should not be used unless you are low on mana. Glyphs :Suggested Major Glyphs: :* - Coupled with Aspiration, this glyph will lower the Penance cool down from 12 seconds to 7.6 seconds :* - This glyph has the ability to activate Divine Aegis :* :Optional Major Glyphs: :* :* :Suggested Minor Glyphs: :* :Optional Minor Glyphs: :* :* :* Talents :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhhVRIsffRt0x Discipline Cookie Cutter build (57/5/0)+9] as of 3.3.5 ::This build has 9 points left unspent and is meant to demonstrate what talents are required for a discipline priest. This build contains all healing output talents, damage mitigation talents, and raid utility talents that a priest with 51+ talent points in discipline is expected to bring to a group. Typically you will see remaining points put into talents such as Healing Focus, Improved Renew, Spell Warding, Divine Fury, Inspiration, and Desperate Prayer. How you spend the last 9 points is specific to tank healing, raid healing, and survivability. :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhhVRIsffRt0xtc Discipline Tank Healer (57/14/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::This build takes points in Divine Fury , Inspiration, and Desperate Prayer. With this build a disc priest will likely focus on tank healing, but is still a capable raid healer. The point in Desperate Prayer can be moved to Healing Focus. In addition to the shorter cast time on Greater Heal, a priest will also have a shorter cast time on Smite, allowing the priest to deal damage when their group is not taking damage. If Borrowed Time is used appropriately, they healer can provide hasted Greater Heals to the tank and hasted Prayers of Healing to the raid group. :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhhVRIsffRtfxzc Discipline Raid Healer 1 (57/14/0)] as of 3.3.5 :: Points are taken in Healing Focus, Improved Renew, Inspiration, Desperate Prayer. This build increases the throughput of Renew giving the discipline priest a instant cast spell that does considerable healing. A quick Power Word: Shield followed by a Renew and Prayer of Mending will bring a damaged group member up to full health. This build focuses on healing output rather than survivability. :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhhVRIsffRtoE0c Discipline Raid Healer 2 (57/14/0)] as of 3.3.5 :: Points are taken in Healing Focus, Spell Warding, and Inspiration. This build is excellent for encounters with AoE spell effects because it gives the healer minimized spell push back and 10% damage mitigation against all spell damage. A small variation to this build can be used, adjusted build will look like this build. This build focuses on survivability rather than higher healing output. Holy builds Glyphs :Suggested Major Glyphs: :* :Optional Major Glyphs: :* :* :* :* :* :Suggested Minor Glyphs: :* :Optional Minor Glyphs: :* :* :* Talents :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuZcxtcc0qih0euAo Cookie-Cutter Guardian Spirit/Circle of Healing Build (14/57/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::A build commonly referred to as the standard for Guardian Spirit/Circle of Healing builds, it specializes in healing up raid-wide damage while also having adequate tools to deal with incoming personal or tank burst. This build is great for fights with a lot of AoE damage, and most holy builds vary little from this mainframe. :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuZfvzcb0qihGcuAo Body and Soul/Renew Balanced Build (14/57/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::This build gives the invaluable utility of Body and Soul while maintaining the same level of healing throughput expected from a raid healing holy priest. This build is a Renew talent build based on high mana conservation, raid utility, and still providing the large burst expected of a raid healer. Points can be adjusted slightly to increase healing output at the cost of mana regeneration to look like this build. :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuZfvzcbMqiuG0uAo Utility Guardian Spirit/Circle of Healing Build (14/57/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::This build is strictly meant for raid utility. Utility talents include Body and Soul and Lightwell. Healers in a supporting role usually have high burst to bring a raid back up to full health as quickly as possible. The build focuses on AoE healing spells to cover burst spike damage, rather than Flash Heal and Greater Heal. Single taget, the priest should use Renew and Prayer of Mending until Surge of Light procs for Flash Heal. Due to the lack of Serendipity, healers using this build will want to gem as much haste into sockets without sacrificing spell power. Large amounts of haste result in higher mana consumption, making it imperative for the priest to take every mana conserving talent available. Excellent build when healing in conjunction with a restoration druid or restoration shaman. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbhZfEzcbMqihhcuAo AoE Holy build (13/58/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::This build takes raid healing to the next level while dropping talents that benefit your flash heal and greater heal, and picking up all the talents to increase survivability and AoE healing output. The play style involves spot healing with Flash Heal and Renew and removing Greater Heal from your spell rotation. Cast Circle of Healing and Prayer of Healing to cover AoE damage. Since the build does not take Empowered Healing, your flash heal is not your strength. You will cast flash heal when Surge of Light activates and always keep Serendipity available at 3 stacks to assure a hasted Prayer of Healing. Finally, to add survivability, 5 points are entered into Spell Warding. A point can be moved from Spell Warding into Inner Focus if preferred. Hybrid builds Hybrid builds do not have the standard abilities a fully talented holy or discipline priest will bring to a raid group. They do however offer raid utility and additional benefit that you will not encounter in a standard talent build. Hybrid healing builds will typically either reduce over all healing capability or increase overall sustained healing as a sacrifice to pick up non-standard raid utility found in each tree. The same goes for Hybrid damage dealing talent builds. Points in each of these builds can be moved to acquire more mana regeneration, healing output, and even damage output. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVhbuhhiRIocboZbxtcbbqb:VuzVm0 Holy Smite Build (43/28/0)] as of 3.3.3 ::This is an alternative to Shadow's style of DPS. The idea is to keep the Holy Fire on your target for Glyph of Smite. Alternatively you could also keep your Shadow Word: Pain up with Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain to increase mana regeneration. Smite builds use Holy Nova more effectively in AoE situations than Shadow by allowing instant cast Smites to be cast by abusing Surge of Light procs. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVIbu0hVMIk0bZrxxcc0qru Hybrid Healing Disc/Holy Spirit-Crit Build (37/34/0)] as of 3.3.3 ::This build is based around high amounts of Spirit and Crit. This can be difficult to achieve as you commonly will not find Spirit and Crit together on the same item. However if you can manage your 5 second out of casting time and sync it with procs of Holy Concentration, Surge of Light, and proper use of Inner Focus you can easily keep your mana high for when things get rough. Another thing about this build is that it is very flexible. You can easily move many talent points around and still achieve a very powerful raiding build. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhhVZcxtcc0qiuMIz Hybrid Healing Disc/Holy - Mental Strength/Circle of Healing (25/46/0)] as of 3.3.3 ::High Crit and in fight mana regeneration but still good healing throughput. Optionally you can switch the point from Lightwell to another Empowered Healing, as Lightwell only can be used with tactically advanced groups. Missing Guardian Spirit makes you less likely to be chosen as main tank healer, but overall you have high potential to be on top of the effective healing list due to capable healing power, high intellect, and a larger mana pool. Shadow builds Glyphs :Suggested Major Glyphs: :* :* :* :Optional Major Glyphs: :* :* :* :Suggested Minor Glyphs: :* :Optional Minor Glyphs: :* :* :* Talents :[http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbhZZGxfVofz0fqfzAo Cookie-cutter Raiding Build (13/0/53)+5] as of 3.3.5 This is the basis of most PvE shadow builds. Note that there are 5 points free which the player may place as they choose. These may be placed in 2/2 Veiled Shadows for extra damage potential from Shadowfiend, 1-3/3 Focused Mind for slightly better mana efficiency, 2/2 Improved Vampiric Embrace for increased survivability, 1/1 Inner Focus or 1/1 Psychic Horror for extra situational utility. PvP/Arena builds (Obsolete) Glyphs :Suggested Major Glyphs: :* (Discipline) :* (Discipline) :* (Shadow) :* :* :Optional Major Glyphs: :* :* :* :Suggested Minor Glyphs: :* :* :* (Shadow) Talents :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxcrhhGiRIoffotbezh Cookie-Cutter Disc PvP Build (57/14/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::This build is based on high Survivability, with great mana regeneration. Great for PvP and Arena. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxcruhMiRcoffRtbhtI:ATbVzM Alternate Disc PvP Build (54/17/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::This build takes more talents from the Holy tree for faster casting and mitigating talents, including Inspiration and Blessed Recovery. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxIrzIMiRIsbfotfVzM Survivability PvP Build (58/13/0)] as of 3.3.5 ::Gives max survivability at the cost of mana regen and maximum mana. Very deep disc, with holy down to Desperate Prayer. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxcrh0MZZ0xfiRfkbcqfkAo Shadow Cookie-Cutter PvP Build (17/0/54)] as of 3.3.5 ::Typical talents taken for a shadow damage PvP priest, going into discipline as far as Improved Mana Burn. :[http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bxcruhGiRhoZZ0xfiRfkbco Shadow/Disc Hybrid PvP Build (38/0/33)] as of 3.3.5 ::Defensive DPS spec, the priest can mitigate incoming damage with Shadowform as well as being able to protect themself and others with powerful Shields. External links *Priest talent analysis - In-depth look at the value of each talent. Right here on WowWiki. *Useful macros for Priests - Contains many useful macros for healing and damage dealing priests. Located right here on WoW Wiki. *Shadowpriest.com - The largest active community for shadow priests. *PlusHeal.com - Great source of information for discipline and holy priests alike. *WoW Popular - World of Warcraft Popular Choices Priest - Find the most popular Talent Builds, Glyphs, Gear, Enchants and Gems for your class, spec and play style. *Patch 3.3.3 related links ::*WotLK Healing Compendium v3.3.3: Icecrown citadel and beyond - Guide to Healing Priests and Raiding. ::*Shadowpriest Theorycraft 3.3 Edition - I get by with a little help from my friends - Guide to Shadow Priests and Raiding. Category:Guides Category:Priest talents Category:Priests